Traffic characteristics of the T1 NSFNET backbone

The results of a measurement study of the T1 NSFNET backbone are presented. The measurement environment and the approach to data collection are discussed. Measurements results are then presented for: long-term growth in traffic volume, including attribution to domains and protocols; trends in average packet size on the network, over both long- and medium-term intervals; most popular sources, destinations, and site pairs; traffic locality; international distribution of traffic; mean utilization statistics of the overall backbone as well as of specific links of interest: and delay statistics.<<ETX>>